


Kitten

by andthebluestblue, Shayvaalski



Series: Mark [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Character Study, Gen, I want to touch his face with both my hands, Transgender, Translock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthebluestblue/pseuds/andthebluestblue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark gets a cat. This is not a turn of events he would have originally predicted. </p><p> </p><p>(This verse features an FtM Molly, named Mark.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitten

Mark goes in intending to get a dog. A _big_ dog. One of those ones with the ears that stand up and outweigh him by at least a kilo. A dog that will fill the entire flat and cover everything with hair and drool and squeaky toys and make Jim’s absence almost entirely unnoticeable—Jim, who hasn’t bothered to call or show up at work or send flowers (or...pocket squares. Silk ones.) or anything at all for three weeks. A dog that will chew up the leftover trainers and sleep on the new afghan Mark had taken to throwing over the old couch. 

Because _fuck_ Jim.

Besides, Mark has always liked animals, and he’s never had a real pet—too messy, his father had said. Just a sodding little goldfish in a stupid little bowl and Mark is getting a _big dog._ A big hairy one. With teeth. And drool.

 

***** 

The animal home smells oddly of bleach and hair. When he asks the woman at the tiny desk crammed into the front room, she says that the kennels are at the back of the shelter—down the hall and past the cattery. She doesn’t bother to show him down, just grins a small unhinged grin and points, tells him there should be a volunteer down there _somewhere,_ dearie, and watch out for Blackie, he nips. (Mark is almost sure she has cats. Lots of cats. Something about her eyes suggests it.)

He does keep a lookout for the volunteer, though—which is why he sees the kitten. He’s barely even halfway down the hall when he glances through one of the glass panes and sees a small cluster of cats, and, in the far corner, a tiny tortoise-shell ball of fur and ears. _Oh._

No. Mark is here to get a dog. But he stops anyway, because the poor thing is clearly nervous and the other cats are _much_ bigger, and that’s—a little too familiar, isn’t it, and Mark is fully and completely aware he is Overidentifying With A Cat, and possibly it is time for another appointment with the therapist. 

He stops, though. Just to take a look, and see if it’s getting enough food, because Mark hears stories about this kind of place—not stories about animals starving, really, but still. Stories. 

And water. She should have enough water. 

There’s plenty of water, and the dish of food is more than big enough for the four cats, so there’s no reason for Mark to be still leaning the side of his head against the framing when the volunteer finally comes by. 

“Anything I can help you with, love? Or just window-shopping today?” She’s younger than the woman at the desk, cute, her hair tied back in a bandanna and wearing a t-shirt and denims. Mark startles, just a little, and blinks, and does not at all mean to say, “The um. The little tortoiseshell, in the corner? Is she available?” 

Because probably the other cats bully her, she’s so small, and that’s _awful._ No kitten should be bullied, especially a kitten that is so tiny and clearly helpless and in need of protection.

Therapy. Mark needs to go back to therapy. But. She’s all ears and tail and oh, dear, Mark did not come here for a cat.

Mark knows what kind of person loses a boyfriend and gets a cat. Or, for that matter, what kind of person gets a cat without even losing a boyfriend—lesbians, mostly. Little old ladies. But despite that knowledge he finds himself filling out paperwork and forking over fifty pounds and holding a cardboard carrier steady while the younger woman expertly bundles the kitten into it. The kitten is not entirely pleased. Mark is not entirely pleased. Mark was going to get a _dog_. The flat is not prepared for a cat—it wasn’t entirely prepared for a dog, either, Mark has to admit; still, cats seem to require far more preparation. Litter, and all that.

Luckily, the desk lady gives him a pamphlet along with his hissing, rattling carton of kitten; it’s brightly colored and clearly home-printed, featuring such cheery headings as “Bringing Your New Friend Home!” and “When Your New Friend Pees Everywhere!” Mark is sure she has a _lot_ of friends. And also that she’s not just written but memorized the pamphlet, and he flees before she can begin to recite it. 

He names the cat Tobi. After his best friend in primary school, because Mark is really, really terrible at names, and even though he spent six months trying to think up one that fit _him,_ he isn’t going to spend that sort of time on a kitten he didn’t even want. Though, having thought that, he immediately has to spend several minutes carefully fussing over and crooning to Tobi, in case Tobi heard and now she doesn’t feel loved.

Oh dear. 

When they get home Mark makes the mistake of letting Tobi out of the carrier almost immediately (the pamphlet probably advises against this, but Mark can’t make it past the section on Drawing Out His New Friend’s Inner Tiger) and the kitten vanishes beneath the couch to sulk. 

This would not have happened with a dog. 

 

*****

Life with Tobi is—exciting. Certainly more exciting than living alone; possibly even more exciting than—well. Living with Tobi is exciting because Mark has to be rather more careful about going around corners, now; he isn’t really worried about stepping on her, but he only has so many white coats, and all of his are looking rather tattered about the hem. And the first time he gets home after a late shift and gets into bed without looking is an experience he’d really rather not repeated, because it’s amazing, really, how loud one small tortoiseshell kitten can yowl and how wounded slit-pupiled eyes can look. And how much a scratch can hurt without even having the decency to bleed, if it’s in a sensitive enough area.

But they’ve settled down to a nice rhythm, the two of them, and Tobi is wonderfully reassuring to have curled up at his feet in the night (and, mysteriously, on his head in the morning). And Tobi seems happy with Mark, with her car-engine purr and ears all lopped outwards and tail curled around herself, and _she’s_ not going to leave for reasons she won’t even explain. 

A dog would need to be walked too often, anyway, and Mark works odd hours. 

The first time Mark sees Sherlock after he gets Tobi, he waits through Sherlock’s three second once-over, through Sherlock’s smug flash of _ah yes, new information_ and, when Sherlock opens his mouth, immediately snaps “Yes, I’m single again, yes, I have a tortoiseshell cat, _yes I adopted her from Precious Paws shelter did I miss anything._ ” Sherlock snaps his mouth shut, looking put out, and John rolls his eyes a bit, giving Mark a sympathetic look when Sherlock’s back is turned.

Sherlock does not bring the cat—or Jim—up again, and Mark begins to think a little more highly of John. John who is nothing special, who doesn’t really deserve Sherlock, just like Mark ended up, he thinks a little bitterly, not deserving—well. That doesn’t matter now. 

Tobi keeps growing rather longer than Mark expects, and honestly it’s a good thing there’s no one else in the bed because no one else would _fit._ Forget a dog, the cat is well on its way to being big enough to prevent Mark from getting off up the couch if she’s a mind to stay where she is. Not that she ever would, of course, because she’s a sweetheart, and he had been meaning to watch the entirety of Basic Instinct anyway. 

Mark is happy. Mostly.

**Author's Note:**

> The authors would like to note that Mark—being a person with ideas and goals and a life of his own—holds opinions which are not necessarily contiguous with those of the authors.
> 
> (Additionally, one of the authors would like to mention that she is a queer lady and does not own a cat; the other would like to make clear that he is a queer guy who owns two.) 
> 
>  
> 
> As ever, please, please, please don't use this as a primer on transgender people.


End file.
